A Nonlinear Course of Action
by thenormalsteven
Summary: A lot of things can happen when you find that you've just recently escaped from an underground mind-controlled office building. Falling in love with the narrator right behind you is likely one of the least probable.


"Stanley was going absolutely nowhere by messing around with his coworkers' papers, and he damn well knew it."

The Narrator continued to provoke the businessman further and further, as his bitter rival down below decided to act the gadfly and go against the Narrator's wishes, which only seemed to tick him off even more.

Stanley could hear an audible sigh coming from the ceiling up above. "Well, _fine,_ then, Stanley, if you want to waste valuable time we could be spending trying to progress the story trying to get _me_ angry instead, then you've certainly done a bang-up job at it. Now, _please,_ can we _try_ to continue the story?"

Stanley stared at the ceiling for a moment in thought, and then proceeded to blow a raspberry in the Narrator's general direction and started tossing the papers into the air like confetti.

The Narrator growled irritably, the sound starting to become distorted from how close he was to the microphone. "… _FINE,_ THEN, STANLEY! YOU WANT TO WASTE YOUR TIME, _SO BE IT!_ SEE IF _I_ CARE!"

Stanley paused to turn towards the speakers, dropping the leftover papers in his hands. It almost seemed as though the Narrator was starting to get choked up. "I ONLY WANTED TO _HELP_ YOU, STANLEY, AND YOU DON'T EVEN CARE IN THE _SLIGHTEST!_ _I ONLY WANTED TO HELP YOU ESCAPE!_ I… _I…_ just _leave me alone,_ Stanley. I need some time to think."

There was the vague sound of a swivel chair being shoved backwards, and the speakers had gone dead silent. Not another word from the Narrator.

The young man furrowed his brow, his deep brown eyes darting back and forth with worry and regret.

Had he hurt the Narrator's feelings? It certainly seemed like it. It almost sounded like he'd been on the verge of crying.

This was bad. This was _really_ bad. This was _astronomically_ bad in a plethora of countless ways that Stanley couldn't even care to count.

But it was mainly bad in the sense that Stanley had unintentionally hurt the feelings of his only source of company in the abandoned office building, and he hadn't even said a word.

Stanley wasn't going to stand around and do nothing about it, for sure. He wasn't really the speaking type, but he was most _certainly_ the doing type.

He knew what he had to do.

He had to apologize.

Stanley raced down the empty hallways, checking each and every office door to see if it swung open to where the Narrator was hiding. Most of them looked to be locked, based on Stanley's prior experience with these particular doors, but that wasn't going to stop him from trying.

The young man knew he wasn't going to get very far by simply trying to open already locked doors, so he reasoned that there was only one other logical thing he could do.

He slammed his eyes shut, sucking in a noisy breath of air, as he braced himself to try and attempt the one thing he'd only very rarely pulled off in the twenty-seven years he'd been alive.

" _NARRATOR!"_ he bellowed at the top of his lungs, throwing his head back as he continued to run through the barren hallways. _"NARRATOR!_ THIS IS STANLEY SPEAKING! I JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT I'M-"

But there, at the end of the hallway where he'd least expected it, was an open doorway opening up to a mile-high rotunda, monitor screens of each and every room and hallway in the building sitting one atop the next, filling the room with an eerie, faintly hazy blue glow.

Stanley was ever-so-quick as to shut his mouth as he crept up behind the swivel chair sitting in the center of the round room. As he grew near, he could almost hear a faint sobbing sound muffled only by a layer of fleecy fabric.

Bracing himself and looking away in case he needed to quickly turn tail and run, he reached out carefully with one hand and landed his fingers on the man's shoulder.

Stanley turned his head back towards the man, struggling to open his eyes, as he had a lurking feeling deep inside that the Narrator was about ready to turn on him.

…But he looked to be fine for now, right?-

" _What_ are you _doing,_ Stanley?"

The Narrator growled fiercely, whipping his head around, causing Stanley to flinch and nearly turn tail, but he tripped on his feet and instead found himself stumbling backwards onto the ground.

The tall, menacing figure of the Narrator loomed over Stanley like a human shadow, the flickering light from the monitors reflecting sharply off his thinly-rimmed reading glasses.

"You wanted to make me angry, well _now you've done it,"_ the shadowy figure spoke to him, his pale blue eyes glinting viciously as he stooped down to eye level with Stanley.

Stanley could just barely make out the sharp, striking outline of his shadow-framed face, his dark, coffee-colored hair streaked through with shades of gray.

"There's no way you could possibly find it in yourself to _apologize_ to me," he growled in a quiet voice that was clearly trembling with heated emotion. "Not after all those times you've purposefully _gone_ down the wrong path, _went_ through the wrong door, _waiting_ until I _scream_ at you to do what I've asked you nicely..."

Without any second thoughts, he plucked the young man off the ground by the brim of his collar as he tried furiously to get away, narrowing his piercing blue eyes, furrowing his thoughtful brow.

" _Admit it,_ Stanley, you're _nothing_ without me," the Narrator snarled at him, raising his voice without worry, as Stanley's eyes widened with panic. "If it weren't for _me,_ _you_ wouldn't know what to do. There wouldn't be _anyone_ to give you instructions. You'd be a lost soul looking for a way to go, but there'd be nowhere to go."

"Face it, Stanley, _I'm_ your _only hope."_ His eyes glowed with untapped fury and indignation. "Without me, you'd be hopeless. _Clueless._ _Pathetic-"_

Stanley was quick to do it so as not to upset the Narrator any further, but he was able to land a brief kiss on the taller man's lips, watching as his looming, shadow-covered face began to glow bright with the hazy red color of the astonished, mortified blush on his cheeks.

Sweat running down his face and the palms of his hands, Stanley fell back towards the ground as the Narrator dropped him in a fit of shock, and the younger man clambered back on his feet and made a mad dash for the door.

As Stanley glanced behind him, he could see the older man stumbling to his feet, brushing the taste off his lips with a gentle finger.

He wondered what the Narrator was going to think of this.


End file.
